Five Times Orihara Izaya Became Human
by Threesmallcrows
Summary: Even if he won't admit it. You could beat him half to death, but there it is. Five times Izaya proved himself, whether willingly or not, to be human after all, much to the surprise of various bystanders and/or observers. COMPLETE.
1. The Zero: Introduction and Prologue

An Introduction

Hello, readers. This is my first story for any fandom, and my first piece of fanfiction in general. All criticism and reviews would be greatly, greatly appreciated. Though the story itself is entitled "Five Times Orihara Izaya Was Human", I can easily extend it to more than five times. If any of you have specific requests for certain emotions that you want Izaya to be, then please say so and I will certainly write it if I have the time! Otherwise, I sincerely hope you enjoy this story. Durarara is a great series with wonderful characters, and I really hope I'm doing it justice.

Prologue

Despite the fact that Orihara Izaya would like to think that he's superior to all the human race—and despite the fact that, annoyingly, he _is_ much of the time—there are still moments where he becomes what he is, in the end: human. It's there a quick minute at a time, or just for a few seconds, or even for an entire day. You could beat him half to death and he wouldn't admit it, but there it is.

This is five times Orihara Izaya proved himself, whether willingly or not, to be human after all (much to the surprise of various bystanders and/or observers). Five times he wasn't the one behind the binocular lens. Presented in no particular order, whether chronological or of importance. Told from the points of views of five different characters.


	2. The First: Regret

Five times Orihara Izaya proved himself, whether willingly or not, to be human after all (much to the surprise of various bystanders and/or observers). Five times he wasn't the one behind the binocular lens. Presented in no particular order, whether chronological or of importance.

I love Durarara, but obviously do not own it. Genius characters and stories belong to geniuses, which I certainly don't claim to be. Also, greatest thanks to , Quizilla, Live Journal, etc. for giving all these aspiring writers a space for creativity.

1. Regret

Normally, when Celty Sturlson drives by, her black motorbike screaming like the demon it is, herself dressed all in tight black leather with a strange looking helmet, and possibly with a little otherworldly black smoke trailing rapidly behind her, people turn to look at her. To say the least. They whip out their cell phones and lights flash, while a cacophony of fingers tapping texts to recipients unknown to her sounds in her—ears? Mind?

Whatever. She's gotten used to—if not exactly come to enjoy— this strange, semi-celebrity status by now. And Shinra seems to find it cute that he's dating something of a cross between an urban legend and myth, part fairytale and at the same time all reality. What a weird guy.

So when she comes flying by a small plaza in some random part of Ikebukuro on her howling motorbike, just a typical end to another rather unexciting job, she's honestly surprised when the crowd's attention stays fixed to some point on the ground that she cannot yet see. Celty finds a convenient side-street and dismounts—dismounts _would _be the correct term, wouldn't it– from her bike-demon-horse, because though she may be part myth and part urban legend and part fairytale, she is still all reality and has that damned cat's curiosity as bad as any human does. Though she's not particularly scared it'll get her killed.

When she looks back at this moment, it is nestled among so many others and yet is bone-jarringly different, standing out like the bright yellow, almost-glowing caution tape she sees now cutting across the worn black tar of the road. The afternoon light shines beautifully and softly on that ugly, ugly tape, almost making it beautiful too. The crowd squeezes and murmurs around her. They're tap-tap-tapping away on those cell phone keys, snap-click-snapping pictures, but it's not her they're looking at.

Shizuo Heiwajima's body is lying on the pavement.

It is like, to use that old cliché, time slows down. She is suddenly aware of how quiet it is in the city, in that hour and that minute, perhaps quieter than anywhere else on Earth. The only sound is that of the bartender's death being transmitted across hundreds of tiny glowing screens all across the city. The modern-day pallbearer, she remembers thinking faintly; but how could she be thinking about that when one of Shinra's best friends and a man she, too, came to befriend is dead?

And she knows it, too. There's no spirit left to see.

The sun is slipping slowly down the horizon, and the clouds are removing their fingers from their tight clutch of the sun, and all are racing slowly towards the final dénouement of the day. Shizuo's rough blonde hair is scarred by blood, his body framed by the ugly yellow lines of the tape and illuminated by the soft, cool light of the flashes of cameras and the warm orange glow of the sun. The truck is curved violently off the street, three wheels lying on pavement and a large dent in its front—and this does not surprise Celty, that when Shizuo dies he leaves several last, angry marks behind. She almost laughs, since she cannot cry, has no eyes and no tears to weep, yet has no mouth for joy either. The vehicle lurks unhappily and guiltily in the darkness slowly filling up the street, trying to hide. The driver is in the crowd somewhere too, she doesn't doubt, looking on, looking on at the passing of a legend.

Slowly, slowly, she becomes aware of a black shadow against a wall, and rough fur against a pale neck. She is not at all surprised that he is here. It seems only natural. They always seemed to find one another like children made of magnets, even with a city as a playground, and signposts and flickblades as toys. Izaya, unlike her, was not usually greeted with frenzies of cell-phone-whipping-out-edness or text-messaging of any sort, though they might have if they knew him, knew his particular brand of madness and danger. She never understood Izaya at all, never particularly liked the man, tried to stay well away from him when he didn't bother coming after her. Even a Dullahan stays away from that illness of insanity that Izaya houses in his mind. But now, in her shock, she finds her eyes drawn to him. Anything to look away from the floor, scrawled on liberally with blood and deathliness.

She observes him as everyone else observes Shizuo, breathing—breathing?—deeply, trying to soak in calm in a storm of sudden inner blankness. Celty knows that Izaya does not see her. This moment is for her eyes only.

There is an air about him she's never seen before. Before he was always moving. Every time she ever saw him, he was running and taunting and laughing, plotting and stomping and running away again with a blonde wolf hot on his heels. Celty could practically see—as much as she can ever see anything—the infinite cogs and wheels of Izaya's mind spinning faster than the air and the planets and always, always, Shizuo Heiwajima. He was always twenty steps ahead. But Izaya is still, now. It's not exactly respect, but more like a deep acknowledgement and a pocket, an eddy in that river called Time while everyone's world shifts a little in a mostly unnoticed earthquake.

For once, Izaya's eyes are closed. He looks peaceful, if not happy. A faint smile plays about his lips, lifting the corners of his mouth spontaneously. Other than that, though, there is no movement about him, no customary bouncing on the balls of his feet or compulsive movement of those quick hands. He stands stiller than the sun and the darkness and the rest of the crowd, leaning slightly against an old brick wall, his head bowed a little and his spine crooked a little, and Celty observes as a statue silently appears in the city and no one else notices.

There's blood on his hands, and this, too, causes Celty no surprise. It's not his, that's for sure, seeing the way it coats Izaya's hands and shirt like a thin breath. Already, it's drying and dying in the warm summer air. For one insane moment, she ponders whether the blood came from killing Shizuo

Or maybe trying to save him?

No, Celty decides. No, she doesn't decide it, she knows it. Izaya did not save Shizuo Heiwajima. He killed him.

In her mind's eye, she can envision it. Shizuo chases after Izaya in that eternal game of theirs, not so eternal now. They round a corner, going particularly fast, shoes pounding the pavement in a terrible rhythm. The afternoon is warm, and the rain is slowly falling, becoming weaker by the second. A man driving a truck from an unknown start to an equally unguessable destination is very wrapped up in his own thoughts and problems, steering absentmindedly with one hand, perhaps with a cigarette in his mouth. Izaya sees that truck coming from the corner of his eye, and a devilish smile flickers over his face. He flicks his blade at Shizuo's chest. It flashes in the waning sun. The horn of the truck blares while Shizuo curses and staggers. He jumps back—

Now there's just the caution tape, fencing hostility.

And when she looks back at Izaya again, his eyes are open and filled with a purely human emotion as he gazes down at his predator and prey. She is surprised, caught off guard. The stillness is broken as he turns, slowly, and walks away, sliding his way through the crowd. They still don't notice him, never will. He does not turn back, and his walk is steady and elegant as always. And Celty knows that he will never see Ikebukuro again, will never come back except perhaps in his dreams. What, now, does he have left to come back for?

Later, when she manages to tear herself away from the scene, speeding home on her horse towards Shinra and comfort and forgetting until morning, she thinks about Izaya's face at that moment, when the deed was done and the mask was off. It wasn't tenderness, for Izaya never had any tender feelings of any sort towards Shizuo. For a moment she thinks it's guilt in his eyes, but Izaya did not feel guilty, for his act was purely intentional. His conscience will not haunt him, and he will sleep untroubled in some foreign city, in some year far in the future, doing God knows, with new friends and new business and another life that Celty most likely will never see. So was it sadness? But no, that isn't correct either. It is the death of his greatest enemy, and she saw the smile on his face and the peace coating his shoulders, resting on top of the blood. It was more of a—

Mind full of incomparable clarity, Celty whispers "regret" to the merciless air, slicing past uncaring as her bike screams.

It went like this.

When he strolled away from the scene, it was like watching a partygoer head off, half-drunk with bliss, after the lights have come back on and the floor emptied, the music just an echo in your ears, and you know you'll never see this place again and turn back one more time to look at the unimpressive remains of what once was alive. It was that type of quiet observance, that moment of questioning one's own judgment in an all-consuming, sudden doubt. Was it the right decision to kill him? It's like spending your whole life running up a snowy, wonderful mountain, tripping on sharp rocks and weaving through maze walls and your feet bleeding and lungs laboring, and whipping past trees and waterfalls and butterflies, going higher and higher and then you reach the top and discover nothing but an endless plain of gray grass in a dim twilight, forever and ever. You stand back for a moment; let the shock shake you back and forth while your breath calms in to pieces. No more game, no more anything. No more Shizuo Heiwajima.

Celty understands now. She still doesn't understand _him_, never did and never will. But in that moment Izaya, too, was reduced to an observer rather than an instigator. He became human for an instant, and centuries in the future when Izaya is long dead and the current generation of children remembers nothing about a certain angry bartender, it is this frozen instant in time that Celty will remember most about him.

The lighting was particularly beautiful that afternoon. You know. That quality of the air that even the city smog cannot obscure, struggling through to show its beauty in early mornings and late nights, sun showers and this particular afternoon? It was there then, in that quiet moment in this magical city. It had rained in the morning, she remembers, and all afternoon, and for two days before. One of those typical summer squalls, violent, and pouring down rain and thunder in bathtubs. What a storm it was, almost blew her helmet off once. Though she hadn't noticed, the storm seems to have cleared itself up now, and the sky shines blue in the afterglow of the sun. How strange. It seems it was always there, but suddenly, without any notice and before she can _take _notice, it is gone. Almost disconcertingly, like a chunk of the sky missing, torn out by some foreign blade.

Regret: **End**

Coming up:

**2. Disgust**

This being my first story for , or for that matter any story at all in general, reviews and especially helpful criticism would be greatly appreciated! Think somebody's OOC? Too many grammar errors? Too boring? Tell it all to me :D. And if you liked it, leave a word so I'll know! I'll be glad. Nobody who writes can ask for much more.

Thank you to all readers, and "see" you next time!


	3. The Second: Disgust

Five times Orihara Izaya proved himself, whether willingly or not, to be human after all (much to the surprise of various bystanders and/or observers). Five times he wasn't the one behind the binocular lens. Presented in no particular order, whether chronological or of importance.

I love Durarara, but obviously do not own it. Genius characters and stories belong to geniuses, which I certainly don't claim to be. Also, greatest thanks to , Quizilla, Live Journal, etc. for giving all these aspiring writers a space for creativity. 

Does it snow in Ikebukuro??? I really don't know, readers. Sorry! Please assume it does.

2. Disgust

When Masaomi Kida first met Orihara Izaya, it was, he remembers, in the dead center of winter. He walks to school every morning, and that brilliant seven o'clock or so is dull as usual. Life is boring, the then-black haired boy thinks. Nothing happens. Even the snowflakes that trip from the sky seem less small miracles than the uncaring dandruff of God. One lands on his small cheek, a burning and unwelcome kiss from the sky. The world is painted in grey and white, and washed-out pastels of shadows, muted tones spouting from the early sun's lips in long sighs. His uniform seems to melt in to the ground. His breath forms thin clouds against the air, pushing feebly against all this whiteness. His footsteps are muted against the cold earth, and slushy snow is melting through the soles of his feet. The world is absolutely, absolutely still, and quiet.

So you can imagine what a surprise it is for Kida when he rounds another corner of whiteness, and a black slash of ink against the papery world invades his blank eye. The young man leans against the stone wall of white, challenging it with the blackness of his outfit and the warm stoniness of his piercing glare, and Masaomi Kida cannot help but turn to stare at him for a moment, as discreetly as he knows how.

This man is short, maybe a little over five feet and a half tall. He's got narrow eyes that slant upwards, and the irises are a rich brown, unfaded by the unforgiving light. There's black hair flopping like messy crow's wings over his pale forehead. He has a rather sharp face, like knife slashes against paper, and an arrogant manner of slouching slightly against the wall. He looks like trouble, Kida decides, and keeps walking, slowly, still staring quietly. Kida has always been good at reading the books that are people, after all.

Long after the man is out of sight, Kida closes his eyes to the route he knows too well and considers in his mind the details of the intrusion. He was wearing a jacket that was much too big for him and that flopped lazily in the small wind. The sleeves swallowed his thin arms, mouthed at his hands and thin fingers. There was a rather bright, obvious red mark on the side of his neck, an ugly temporary tattoo fading in to bruised purple around the edges. Kida blushes a little at the realization of why he was there so early in the morning, becomes aware of the past that goes with the present, and goes back to thinking about the next pick-up line he'll use on that busty chick sitting three seats to his left.

A few hours later, at school, Kida realizes suddenly that he wasn't wearing any shoes.

The next morning, he's still there. He didn't bother putting any jacket on at all today, and so the gaping red wounds stare Kida in the eye until he looks away. Kida feels cold just looking at him, freezing shoulders bared against the snow, arms refusing to cross over his chest and seek warmth, though Kida can see they're balled up into fists. He's still barefoot, and his feet are turning white with the snow. This time, it's different, however. A voice slices across the air, leaving a streak.

"Hello, boy," and that voice is even more biting than the wind.

"Hello…" trails Kida, rather put off. What is he supposed to say? The situation is ridiculous.

"And where are you going, so alone, in the morning?" Brown eyes stare, dangerously.

Should he answer? The situation seems to getting rather strange. "School. I'm in the sixth grade," he counters anyways, staring obstinately back at this challenging man.

"School," snorts the man, smirking a little. "Have fun," he drawls, turning away on feet screaming in pain. Kida's footsteps trail off to the school, though these words itch at him for the rest of the day.

The third morning, his feet and skin are melting in the freezing mouth of the snow. Kida can see that the man can see his curiosity, and is waiting for him to make the first move, so he strikes first.

"And what are you doing, so alone, in the morning?"

Is what he wishes he would say. Instead, out comes, "Don't you have shoes?"

There is an echoing silence. Kida cringes a little at the awkwardness of it.

Slowly, slowly, the man smiles, teethily, moving aforementioned feet a little. "I was too tired to put them on."

"What are you doing here?"

Brown eyes consider brown, for a second, in the glaring snow. He decides to answer, after all.

"It's what one might call a long-term project of mine," says the man, slowly, smiling an injury in to the air, and Kida can smell from twenty feet away the sex lying on this man's skin, seething in his torn skin, the spontaneous shifting of his feet sounding like the creaking of bedsprings. Kida can hear it in the rhythmic flick of the blade, the in-out-in-out of it. There's an awkward moment of acknowledgment, shattered by Kida's pronouncement, bursting forth from his itchy throat.

"My name is Masaomi Kida."

And in return, what he wanted to know, with a slight nod and a quirk of the man's thin mouth.

"I am Orihara Izaya. Pleased to meet you."

The fourth day, they have an almost conversation.

"Aren't your feet cold?" Kida can't bear to look at the freezing toes and the skin turning blue and bruised with the abuse he puts on himself.

"I have told you already, haven't I? No time to put on shoes." A lie. Too obvious, Izaya. He's not learned to lie as well as he will in four or five years from now, cannot hide himself as quickly as he will in the future.

"Doesn't _that_"—a pointed glance at his throat, his chest, the weeping wounds—"hurt you?"

"Pain means nothing. It's all in how you bear it," he says almost proudly, and for a precious moment Kida catches a glimpse of something of this man's intentions—but it is gone, too quick for him to catch. He wants to discover it again, so Kida doesn't let the conversation end just yet. He refuses to back down against the wild wall of indifference this Orihara Izaya is quickly building, with bricks made of cutting smiles and razorblades.

"Why do you bear it?" comes Kida's clumsy sword-cut.

Which is he talking about? The snow, or the sex? It's up to Izaya to decide which way to block, now.

"I told you, Masaomi Kida. It is a long-term project of mine, something for a client which I would sorely dislike to disappoint. It's also not much of your business, but then again the questions you ask are not mine either." And that is the end of that, as Izaya pads slowly past the wall and through the gate, in to the dark interior of the small apartment house, leaving a cutting wake with his smile. Kida's eyes reflect the click of the door shutting again.

But he didn't answer about the snow, Kida realizes later. What about the snow?

The fifth morning, Kida makes up his mind to ask about the snow. Why is it that this Orihara Izaya must stand barefoot, shirtless, in the snow each morning? Is he just a masochist? But Kida knows, intuitively, that that is not it. There's something behind this, that something that he caught a glimpse of yesterday, and the curiosity is swallowing his head whole, the tongue blinding him and lips fevering his brain.

But someone's beat him there, and he ducks quickly behind the corner to observe the scene. A rather large man comes out of the gate set in the wall upon which Izaya leans nonchalantly. He is hideous, and possesses none of Izaya's gracefulness and teasing attitude. It's not so much the physical build of his face so much as the absolute air of idiocy about him. Izaya continues to lean on the wall, cold white shoulders pressed against freezing wall and his torturer, the sky, eyes closed in feigned ignorance of that other's presence, but that hand still flicking the blade, dangerously. His feet are jittering on the snow, and Kida wonders how long he can stand the cold.

This large, ugly person throws his jacket at Izaya, full of anger at himself and the world and his need for this small, thin, spider-web of a man, and Izaya catches it gracefully with his small fingers. Izaya smiles, thinly, dangerously, that hand containing the shining blade ever close. "Awww. Thanks, Suzuki-chaaan." And Izaya tries to catch the man's eyes in his own, and force the knowledge of what they've spent the weeknights doing in to his pupils, but his eyes slide away on the ice covering the road.

"Stop calling me that, you slut," the man half-whispers, as he strides away, angrily, stupidly, unaware of Kida's presence and awkward with the un-knowledge of it riding roughly on his shoulders.

Izaya looks at the jacket curled around his fingers and crawling on his arms, slowly. Put it on, put it on, urges Kida in his mind, suddenly burning with the need to see this man conquered by the air and the season. Kida wants to see him crumple to the ground in supplication to the blue sun, clasp his arms around that jacket full of reminders of deeds done and wrap it around himself in acceptance.

Then, suddenly.

Izaya moves his arm to the side. He's holding the jacket by the throat, his blade an inch away from the jugular of the cloth. There's no smile on his face. He couldn't be more serious. He's going to kill it. He's going to rip it in to pieces, shred them in to the air and watch the bloody threads flow down his arms, and then he'll stomp on the pieces and laugh in triumph. The seconds tick by, and Kida is trapped between Izaya's arms and the jacket, hooked by the situation.

But.

Slowly, slowly.

He puts the jacket down. On the wall, carefully, almost tenderly. Lowers his knife, centimeter by humiliating centimeter. Turns, just as slowly. The chains have attached themselves to his back again.

There it is, in one long burst of a few seconds that to Kida is all of a winter's eternity.

It is like this, he thinks later, sitting at school, his thoughts sandwiched between the awareness of the long, silky black hair of the female sitting in front of him and wondering where his best friend Ryuugamine Mikado is. Why was the life of that jacket spared? Because even if he killed the jacket, what about the owner? Izaya detested him, but why could he not just kill him? Because he needed him, for the information. This is what Izaya deals in—information, yes, but also late nights and creaking bedsprings and the wounds on his neck. And Izaya loves it, just as he love all humans, but sometimes, in moments so brief they almost do not exist, Izaya hates himself for dealing in this trade.

That winter was, among other things, watching a man baptize himself in the cold each morning. The sin settled on his face and made him look so much older than his eighteen-or-so years. He asked for forgiveness silently behind his wall of arrogance and indifference and pain, letting the snow kill him slowly, letting the ice murder his feet and biting his lip so he wouldn't scream, punishing himself in the strangest of ways. It's all in how you bear it, and in this case it was borne silently, on freezing shoulders and thin flesh trembling for warmth, and trembling in disgust at the remembrance of the warmth it held in the darkness of a room made filthy with an act of love committed for anger rather than need, and Izaya hated the man and hated himself for doing it anyways.

The next morning, he's not there any longer. Maybe he broke free after all. More likely the job was finished, and he's off doing something else now, hopefully more enjoyable.

It occurs to Kida that even the Gods of this city are not always free.

Disgust: **End**

This being my first story for , or for that matter any story at all in general, reviews and especially helpful criticism would be greatly appreciated! Think somebody's OOC? Too many grammar errors? Too boring? Tell it all to me :D. And if you liked it, leave a word so I'll know! I'll be glad. Nobody who writes can ask for much more.

Especial thanks for those of you who were so encouraging in the first chapter: ChocolateLizz, Chi, Ash Engel, iRishou, ArdiChok3, Catastrophic Monsoon, Giraffe Attack, terracannon876, and maa6chaaaaaan!

Thank you to all readers, and "see" you next time!


	4. The Third: Worry

I love Durarara, but obviously do not own it. Genius characters and stories belong to geniuses, which I certainly don't claim to be. Also, greatest thanks to , Quizilla, Live Journal, Inkpop, etc. for giving all these aspiring writers a space for creativity. 

3. Worry

The rain is pouring outside in fat, soft sheets of grey wrapped in cocoons of darkness, and Yagiri Namie is pushing her way through the thick air, a small umbrella in hand. Her white lab coat flops unenthusiastically behind her, and her long hair just seems to keep getting in her way, much to her annoyance. Other travelers pass her on their way to their respective destinations, faint smears of faded color in the thick blur of the rain, their voices and feelings muted by the drum of the water. Lights shine blurrily, and distance is so much distorted that she cannot tell what is in front of her eyes, and what may be miles away. The very air is filled with liquefied mist, and she hates this wretched dampness that interferes so with daily life. Every puddle is an annoyance, every passing splashing car and slippery piece of pavement is keeping her from getting to the office where she, hopefully, can get to her brother.

She enters the seemingly abandoned building, wrenching the rusted door open abruptly, the sharp clicking rattle of her shoes greeted by the dry hum of old fluorescent lights. It is very still, and very empty, around ten thirty or so on a humid autumn evening.

Namie makes her way to the elevator. The soft bell dings in the dusky air. The heels of her sensible black rain-boots fire wet warning shots in to the worn floor, as she makes her typical business-like way to the office, of sorts, of Orihara Izaya.

For once, he's not already facing her when she swings the door open, impatience furrowing her brow, in that eerie preemptive way of his. He's talking on the phone with someone else, not smiling. He doesn't seem to notice her, for that necessary split second, and of course Namie picks this up quickly: that Izaya of all people is distracted, for once. There are barely-healed scrapes covering his face, blanketing his thin hands like unwanted pigeons landing on the shoulder of a statue. He looks painful.

He notices her and says something to the person on the other end, hanging up quickly. "Namie-san. What can I do you for today—or should I say, tonight? The hour is rather late, isn't it?"

"As if you don't know what I'm here for. Have you found my brother yet? It's absolutely imperative that I have him back to me, safe, as soon as possible, before him and"—she shudders here, in disgust—"that_ thing_ get in to God knows what kind of trouble. _That thing _has caused a century's worth of trouble for me already, and for my Seiji as well, more than enough. I should just get rid of it, but Seiji just seems to love it so… Well, anyways, _you_ certainly seem to be taking your time about it, Izaya, you know that? What is taking you so long anyways? I thought you were"—

"Izaya!" she demands, leaning forward and pressing her nails in to his desk. He seems to wince a little at the shattering of the sound of the rain.

"Yes, yes, I'm listening…" He fixes that annoying grin back on his face.

"No," she decides firmly, crossing her arms over her flimsy coat. "You're not listening to me at all." That is the problem.

She stands up. Namie has never been able to sit while agitated. She has to move, to yell at someone, to throw something somewhere and do some damage, to hurt something, projecting her own violent emotions by the tearing of the world. She wants to do damage now, so she viciously assails Izaya, whose guard is already far from up, it appears.

Namie strolls over to the board, the first point of attack, from which this general will command her troops of words. There are another few gunshots of heel-clicks in Izaya's office, but this time they're the last warning before the real fun begins. "You haven't made much progress," she starts, staring pointedly at the random pieces from games that shouldn't be put together, shouldn't be mixed—but what did that Orihara ever care for rules? They were made to break, in his opinion. It doesn't look like the board's been touched since the last time she came here, five or so days ago. The pieces gather small blankets of dust to themselves, like children. The water-softened and glowing eyes of the city observe this strange scene through stormy grey eyelashes, curious as to how the man will answer Namie's observation.

There's silence. Izaya considers his next move, eyes tilted towards the floor, readying those weapons of choice he's so talented with.

He's buying time, and Namie wants the truth. She's sick of lies and deceit from this man, from everyone—from her own little brother—but she cannot quite accept _that_ yet, and so Namie strikes again, the snake doubling her score while Izaya's health dips low. He cannot afford not to take the next opportunity, or else he'll be slain and the game over, and we all know that Izaya does not lose the games he plays, especially when the game is one he knows so well. "We'll get whatever's bothering you out of the way first. You'll never be able to focus otherwise." It is not a suggestion. It is a statement, as is most everything else Namie ever says to anyone, except perhaps her precious Seiji. "So? What is it?" What is it that bothers this dark God so much? And again, it is a command rather than a question.

Under a thousand other conditions, Namie thinks Izaya would have probably made something up, given his sneaky personality, the bastard, and thus terminated this strange little dance, with a typical flourish and a bow and light, happy steps. He's not obligated to tell her the truth about himself, only about Seiji and that _thing. _After all, Izaya most likely doesn't believe in taking orders, and prefers side-stepping to arguing, always with a smile on the lips and a knife in the hands. Maybe the soft pattering of the rain works with her to lure him in to calm, and bait the answer that lies, softly glowing, hidden beneath the darkness of his chest. Maybe it's the relatively late hour and the strange, shining calm that lies over Ikebukuro and the familiar aura of this dusty old office, in which this God feels comfortable and at home. Anyhow, the truth comes out, surprisingly rare around someone who buys and sells truth for a living, and for entertainment. But because it's Izaya Namie is dealing with, it takes a little while to get to the heart of things.

"You are very fond of your brother, Namie-san."

"Please do not bore me with obvious observations," she says stiffly, back curling with indignity. She doesn't like the way this man mocks her devotion to her Seiji with that little smirk pasted on his pale face.

He smiles a little more in acknowledgement of her impatience, teasingly. "I'm not making fun of you, Namie-san." He turns to the window, and she faces his thin back and the worn blackness of his thin shirt, the muted light of the city and the tattered drumbeat the sky pours down on this huge human dancefloor. At this point, Izaya does not want to (cannot) face Namie.

"I know it as well. That… "

That what? Namie falters, her premature retort swaying on her tongue at this sudden turn of events. He continues, purposefully treating her surprise as misunderstanding.

He starts again the aborted conversation. "I have, myself, a pair of little girls who call themselves my sisters. Mairu and Kururi, twins."

The silence is heavy, so expectant of something important. The stillness is unbearable, and the spying eyes of the city widen a little and lean confidentially closer as the seconds pass.

"Suffice it to say we had an argument over something silly, or so I thought, anyways. They pushed me. In front of a truck."

His thumb carefully strokes his injured chin, and he flinches a little.

"Anyways. They said they were leaving, or running away, or something. Well, Mairu did. Kururi isn't quite that aggressive, most of the time, but she does go along with Mairu so often…" He rambles, delaying the inevitable. It's hard to switch off a track once you're on it, and Namie is running her train straight back at him, ready to collide at full speed.

"So did they or didn't they? What are you getting at?" Namie tosses her long mane of hair behind her back, increasing the speed yet again. He's wasting time again, not getting to the point, and the point is what Namie cares about, so they can get this over with and talk about Seiji, her love, her life.

Yet. Somehow, Namie catches herself not minding too much. She is wrapped up in the strangeness of this moment with Izaya, caught in the web of a life mostly unknown to her. These two elder siblings are fenced together by the rain, their hands woven together by strands of sticky information, caught in a lonely office at night in Ikebukuro. But there's something more, something more—the birth is yet to come, but it's coming, fast, fast. Namie reaches out in the dim light to catch the words trickling from Izaya's wounded mouth, knowing the importance of them.

"They've been gone a week now. I don't know"— and this hesitance is fatal, the thickness of his voice deadly to himself.

And in that moment, Izaya suddenly transforms in to a being of glass, and in a second's worth of forever Namie can see straight through his soul and his mind and she can see the dark purple of the worry threading through his lungs and scratching at his ribcage and damaging his flesh, and she can also see that bruised thread connecting the two of them to each other, the one thing, perhaps, that they have in common. That unique hurt weaves them together. She doesn't dare speak, because then the miraculous silence will be shattered and Izaya will be a God again, all-knowing and needless of the warmth of emotion while basking in sun-like power, instead of a glassy human, reflecting the mysterious lights of the city, instead of a young man clutching a hole to his beating heart and sending signals with every faint breath in to the night—Where are you, where are you, where are you? Come home. To me. Be safe, my loves, be safe. Keep me no longer in this suspense. It's killing me. They are connected in a moment of absolute strangeness and beauty, two desires merging in to one, three children lost in a city and two lost seekers, a city that suddenly seems deeper than all the oceans together and more unfathomable than universes light-years away, unsearchable as the sky and blinding as night. They both become aware how many dark corners of this city they've never visited, how many of its residents could be good, and how many evil, and how fragile seem the skins of children that they themselves have bruised too many times.

"Well," and the moment is shattered in a horrendous explosion of sharp shards, the glossy smile back again. His tan eyes are as unreadable and smooth as ever, though if one looks carefully they seem to be a little cracked. "I'm sure they're off to no good, wherever they are. It's not much of my concern. So what is it that you had to ask?"

"Finally. Now can we get to business?" she says arrogantly, matching his voice, and they're both pretending, and they both know it. Feigned indifference all around ends the affair, and the city applauds the close of the drama, clapping and weeping quietly, wringing its hands in despair around these two idiotic souls. Whatever shall she do with these two, asks the city? But there's no one to answer her but the unfeeling rain.

Later, after they've concluded their business and Namie's clicking back out of that office, not-quite-so-ruthlessly setting more bullet holes in Izaya's floor, she realizes. Perhaps, the game was a draw this time. After all, now she knows why Izaya always seems to be able to read her so easily.

As she watches the rain pour down and down and down, wishing for Seiji to come back to her, and knowing that floors above her a light is on and someone else is waiting and hoping too, she supposes that love makes one a rather transparent being.

Worry: **End**

**Story notes:** I didn't have a good idea of how this chapter was going to go, unlike the previous two. However, it seemed to come naturally while I listened to the excellent techno music of F-777 on loop. Somehow I think the music, especially the song "One Last Hope", influenced the feel of this chapter a lot, especially near the end. Thank God for Youtube playlists, or else none of this story would ever get itself done!

Also, since I do not read the manga Durarara, I do not have a good idea of what Izaya's relationship with Mairu and Kururi is, other than what basics I've garnered from a little basic online research. This is what I'd like to imagine is Izaya's real feelings for his sisters, when it comes down to it, and when they're not around. I apologize for any inaccuracies!

This being my first story for , or for that matter any story at all in general, reviews and especially helpful criticism would be greatly appreciated!

Especial thanks for extra encouragements to this newbie writer: ChocolateLizz, Chi, Ash Engel, iRishou, ArdiChok3, Catastrophic Monsoon, Giraffe Attack, terracannon876, xXDeath-N'-HellXx, mysisterthinksimavampireII, maa6chaaaaaan, The Nameless Girl, Gekkou Kitsu, ChocoBits Daioh, .But Friends Make Secrets, and Nekotsubasa!All of your kind words are a great support to me!

**Last but not least, thank you to all readers, and "see" you next time! **


	5. The Fourth: Humiliation

I love Durarara, but obviously do not own it. Genius characters and stories belong to geniuses, which I certainly don't claim to be. Also, greatest thanks to , Quizilla, Live Journal, Inkpop, etc. for giving all these aspiring writers a space for creativity.

**Note: **Ash Engel, this is for you, since I do believe you mentioned that you wanted this to happen. Hope it's like you expected!

**4. Humiliation**

The sun is high in the air, and even the ever-cheerful Shinra Kishitani can tell this situation is not going to have any sort of a happy ending.

Relentlessly, the precise archer known as the sun shoots its sharp, unbearably bright arrows down on the boy from the depths of heaven. They pierce neatly his crow's nest of messy black hair and puncture the red shirt he wears underneath his school uniform, and so even though Izaya's bleeding already, it doesn't really show. The harsh light beats Izaya's shadow down until it huddles foolishly, a dark injured animal, underneath his beaten sneakers—for he's a child and hasn't yet found more sophisticated footwear appealing. Heavy breaths scuffle and push past each other tensely in the hot courtyard of the middle school, and eighth-grade aggression is suddenly very much something to be respected and feared. Feet dance nervously on the knife-edge called danger, creating blazing stacks of dust and dirt that fail to cloud the eyes of the light. A match lit by the sun moves another centimeter closer to the white, waxy fuse of the stacked dynamite, the flame licking dangerously at shuddering air. Sweat-beads hit the floor, rapidly, randomly, and with all the thunderous impact of lightning splitting the crying sky in pieces. His breath near exploding in his oppressed lungs, Shinra watches the scene reach its burning climax in this terribly hot September day.

"It doesn't look good for Orihara Izaya," whispers Shinra to an imaginary audience to this, the greatest of all fights. And he's right—it doesn't, and that's a gross under-exaggeration.

On your right, in red, we have contender number one, thinks Shinra to himself in the taut silence, stretched beyond comfort and relief, like the taut skin of a war-drum. Izaya Orihara. He is a skinny, scrawny, pale boy who has already—at the honestly rather tender age of eleven—learned to make words his weapons, to taunt with the deadly accuracy of a knife plunging noisily in to the warm jugular of a child's throat. Though these rather unique blades of his aren't anywhere close to as well-sharpened as they will be some dozen years in the future, they're currently certain nothing to play with either. Everything about child-Izaya is simultaneously less and more than what he _will_ be—less dangerous, more headstrong, less skilled, more wild, less intelligent, more emotional —yet he is still very much the same grinning, taunting, frustrating, maniac, and this he will be forever and ever. He's just as great as getting himself in to fun situations as he will ever be—for Izaya, that instinct came very young, but right now he lacks those crucial skills that will allow him to escape relatively unscathed.

Those kinds of talents, unfortunately, are not born in your body by nature, but come only with painful practices such as this. Look at Izaya, his eyes already like black wounds in his face, his hair slicing across his forehead with surgical imprecision, his uniform flopping loosely about him, the darkness of the cloth puncturing blazing light and heated air. He breathes in the unsuppressed anger and smells the danger, bathes in the boiling chaos and smiles through blistering lips.

In short, Izaya and Shinra both know Izaya's not going anywhere, at least not until he's gotten through his opponents.

On your right, in blue, we have contenders number two, three, four, _and_ five, for God's sake. They're cowards, yes, but they're also all genuinely pissed at Izaya, and so they all came to get a slice of the bloody red cake. They probably outweigh Izaya by a good twenty or thirty pounds all around, and the top of Izaya's head barely comes up to the shortest one of this gang's chin. They blink and sweat in their constrictive school uniforms, uncomfortably caught in the hot, hot, glare of the white eye of the sun. Their fists open and close with great unevenness, and they want to pound the living shit out of this cocky little brat who sneers at them with blinding white teeth. They breathe out pure, steaming aggression, stomping and glaring like snorting bulls, eyeing the red of Izaya's uniform shirt, waiting for a hidden signal.

In short, the odds are stacked against Izaya, concludes Shinra, as the match's flame finally consumes the fuse and a gunshot shatters the air like hurt, breaking the mood irreparably, beyond hope and reason.

Twelve years from now, Shinra will not remember the fight so much as the mood before and after it. The actual brawl wasn't much after the incredible tension before: a clash of bony fists and childish anger and foul words spilling out of tiny mouths, the world sweating emotion rapidly and uncontrollably as the sun watches with uncaring eyes and time leaps back in to motion with a spinning kick.

However, Shinra can tell you that it was brutal. These kids did indeed beat the leaving shit out of Izaya, and Shinra can see Izaya dying slowly in their hands with every strand of blood flying out of him and every bruise that stains his skin. The attackers are vicious, the Rottweilers of that miniature kingdom called school, children who have muscle and fists to back up their terrible temperaments, their flaming lust for violence. Izaya knew this when he contemplated whether or not to piss them off, and he did it anyways. When Izaya walked out to this gladiator's pit, he read his fate in the fading blue of the sky and the breath of his adversaries, could already see his body on the floor before the match was even started. It's madness and stubbornness and also courage, and it's both beautiful and painful for Shinra to watch.

Afterwards.

Izaya lies motionless on the ground, his face turned towards the ground, one arm twisted awkwardly in a strange direction. Shinra can't tell if his eyes are open or not. He chooses instead to observe clinically Izaya's dead-pale face and the rips in his uniform, to be fascinated with the brokenness of Izaya's arm. You must forgive Shinra at this point. In his actions there's no intention to help, no attempt to cry for a teacher or dial for a much-needed ambulance. He doesn't know Izaya particularly well yet, does not at this point know how close he will become with this battered boy leaking blood in to the dirty floor in the future. Shinra steps forward because his nature and doctor's instinct arises in him and demands that observe this grotesque display of the weakness of the human body. Shinra is fascinated by the mechanics of the thing, the blood and the snap of the bone and the thousands of possible injuries that have been inflicted inside this boy's body. It's not exactly sadism, but more of a consuming interest, a wholesome curiosity that Shinra cannot help.

Two steps out on that infinite floor, something miraculous happens. Izaya starts to rise, painfully, slowly. Shinra winces with him, watches Izaya stagger and almost fall, watches him cling on painfully to consciousness, pushing his broken body up with his good arm. Yet there is still a strange elegance to his slow movements. Izaya almost makes his injuries look like ornaments, thinks Shinra. Izaya doesn't try to hide the pain, but he does smile, and Shinra can see from forty feet away the blood staining his teeth and his split and swollen and lip.

Finally, finally, Izaya manages to get up, and it is the achievement of a lifetime for this eleven-year-old. He looks up at the sky, and Shinra flinches a little at the sound the boy's neck makes when he moves it so suddenly. He is— and Shinra sees it, for the first time and one of the last times—

Izaya is crying, tears crawling out of his eyes and snot crawling out of his nose unceremoniously, not because he's particularly scared, not because of the incredible pain or the fact that dust is crawling up his injured nose and forcing its way down his abused throat or because his arm was definitely, definitely broken some while ago and screams his name out loud—but at the humiliation of it, the fact that he was pushed in to the dirt and made those idiotic sounds one makes when injured and was beaten to Hell and back and had not a chance, not a chance in either Earth or in Hell. His arm was broken, and his body as well, and the Izaya was reminded with every pound of damage and cry of pain that he was human, after all. He may be a God in his mind, but there are still ones in this city—not even particularly great ones—who can cause him great hurt to his pride. The boy cannot forgive himself for this. Shinra can see him forcing himself to lick the blood from his lip and nose as it trickles unhurriedly down his face, tasting in the bitterness and hearing in the flavor the unforgiveable message—you lost, you lost, you lost. Admit it, declare it, paint it on the floor in your own rusty spilled blood. Rub the salty knowledge in the wounds of your failure. Stand up, face the world even if you die trying, ignore your hurts, and scream it out loud so the whole city knows that Orihara Izaya did not win this day, Izaya admonishes himself with every beat of his bruised heart.

Later Izaya will pass out peacefully, and Shinra—infinitely more curious about Izaya's personality now, rather than his body—will haul him somewhere and fix him up. Later Izaya will get those four boys back in ways that their simple minds have trouble comprehending, will break their prides and reputations in half and crush them to glittering powder on the floor in ways that they will never forget. Much later Izaya will be able to avoid ever being caught when he doesn't want to be caught, and he'll play this particularly type of game every day with Shizuo Heiwajima until he's become a master at it. Later still Izaya will hide all his emotions as an everyday matter, only to be unmasked quietly by Celty, Mikado, Namie—but that comes only in moments, little spurts of humanity gushing from an iron-clad heart in a space of a few seconds.

But we are in the present, and Shinra watches as Izaya grins like an injury and cries in to the indifferent sky and the dry arms of the air, standing like someone who's just been executed, and Shinra sees the tears crawl ashamed down Izaya's cheeks and into Izaya's mouth to hide their shame, and the minutes tick by, the minutes tick by.

Humiliation: **End**

**Story notes:** When _did _Shinra first meet Izaya? And would Izaya _ever _cry in front of anyone? The more I write, the more I realize that most of the time I often have _no idea_ what I'm talking about. :[ Again, apologies for inaccuracies!

This being my first story for , or for that matter any story at all in general, reviews and especially helpful criticism would be greatly appreciated!

Especial thanks for extra encouragements to this newbie writer: ChocolateLizz, Chi, Ash Engel, iRishou, ArdiChok3, Catastrophic Monsoon, Giraffe Attack, terracannon876, xXDeath-N'-HellXx, mysisterthinksimavampireII, maa6chaaaaaan, The Nameless Girl, Gekkou Kitsu, ChocoBits Daioh, .But Friends Make Secrets, Nekotsubasa, xmichikox, Zairal, imaginedreams22, and TheContheDistance! All of your kind words are a great support to me!

**Last but not least, thank you to all readers, and "see" you next time! **


	6. The Fifth: Surprise

I love Durarara, but obviously do not own it. Genius characters and stories belong to geniuses, which I certainly don't claim to be. Also, greatest thanks to , Quizilla, Live Journal, Inkpop, etc. for giving all these aspiring writers a space for creativity.

**Note: **Last chapter of this series! I'm doing something a little different with this chapter, hope you guys enjoy anyways. :] By the way, I'm assuming that Izaya does not usually live with his sisters, and that they do not live in Ikebukuro. Apologies for inaccuracies!

**5. Surprise **

Kururi stirs, a little. Even these feather-light footsteps gently caressing their home's worn floorboards wake her. The light is weakly, sleepily crawling in through her closed blinds, and the warm body of Mairu is still besides her, hogging the bedcovers as always and snoring loudly— but she's quite used to that, and so it does not bother her much.

"Izaya…?"

In the pre-dawn darkness of the earliest morning, she hears her brother's piercing smile like the ringing of sharp bells in white light, and his hand on her head for an instant, full of warmth and comfort. It's these times she likes best, when the night's too close for them to bicker and argue and fight, and Mairu isn't up to fight with Izaya yet, and even Izaya himself doesn't carry quite so much confident violence in his stride. In this sense, brother and sisters are alike, creatures born of night, yet infinitely attracted to these in-between times of fading or rising sun.

"Go back to sleep. I'm leaving."

She doesn't bother asking where he's going at 5:30 on a Sunday morning, doesn't particularly care. He's always going someplace or another, permanently leaving, and she's never particularly minded being left behind. He has his life and she has hers, and Mairu hers as well.

"Bye, Izaya."

He responds with a centimeter's worth of widening smile and the clean coolness of the air as it sweeps back in to replace his fingers, the creaking door shutting her back in to the almost-sunny warmth of their house. Kururi smiles to herself and easily slips back into dreams.

Izaya slides gracefully on to the train, his foot waving a little goodbye to the floor of the station, the cool key of his sisters' home in his left pocket, his wallet firmly chained to his belt loop by slim silver links of security. Even this early in the morning, the train is far from empty, and Izaya likes this. He sits on one of the dingiest seat-cushions in the train, rests his cheek on a particularly scratched pole, stretches in terribly faded shadows assaulted by the sunlight, and does his favorite thing in the world—observes these ridiculous, lovable humans go about their business. There's something about mornings, he reflects clearly. They're always, to someone with strong intuition like Izaya, a good indicator of how the rest of the day will go, and Izaya feels something special about this day. He felt it in the sleepy murmur of his little sister's half-awake voice, and feels it now in the growing energy of workers who stayed extra hours at their offices speeding home to family in Ikebukuro. He feels it in the mysteries of a thousand sleepy humans whose stories, and whose family's stories and friend's stories and friend's friend's stories, could startle the gods themselves—of which Izaya is one, naturally.

So he watches, like always. He watches a woman in a faded business suit talk on her cellphone, observes her messy manicure and worn shoe-soles, and imagines her conversation for her, her life for her. Where was she ten minutes ago? Where is she going now? Who does she talk to? What business does she have at her destination? The only thing that is certain is that she does not see Izaya, and that's just the way he likes it, both the uncertainty and the certainty.

He arrives in Ikebukuro, and his feet carry him through the streets he both knows so well and does not know the first thing at all about. He passes old shop signs and dusty blinds and cracked glass window-panes, blinks in an almost-friendly manner at firm wooden doors, drying potted plants, and fancy metal gates, and presses his feet against dirty asphalt and old gum. He wonders from what land the wind carried the seed that would become this small tuft of grass sitting forlornly by his shoe in a crack in the street, and crushes it a little with his heel, knowing that it'll spring straight back up after he's gone, ignoring his passing. He follows humans discreetly through the morning hours, living through them. In the wail of a baby, the nagging voice of a wife, the angry grunt of construction workers, footsteps and voices and minds, he detects something of infinity, and is amazed anew. Izaya's laugh rings out against the walls, and yet no one hears it.

Later, Izaya buys himself a little ice cream at some random plaza in the city as the day reaches the heat of a full-blown summer's noon and sits at the old café table, watching people pass by. The sweetness on his tongue is transcendent, and Izaya permits himself to fall into an unusually contemplative mood. What was that saying, he thinks to himself. If one sits here long enough, all the world will pass you by.

Pass you by, pass you by, pass you by. Why do the words echo?

There's something about this day that's bothering Izaya. He doesn't bother taking a breath before diving recklessly and gracefully into the endless pool of his own insanity. He scrutinizes himself, squints his eyes at blurry black bubbles and waves his hand through red water, for Izaya _knows_ that he knows himself inside-out, and the slightest inconsistency in his naturally inconsistent nature is—well, not unforgivable, but certainly strange. Only a maniac can understand a maniac, and Izaya would like not to think that there are corners of his heart he does not know, but in this darkness he is forced to acknowledge the unknowns of the careening depths of his own mind. A bellowing train of conjecture arrives on its crazily curved tracks, and he steps inside. He starts the ride slow, by conjecturing that in this city, there's really no room for someone like him: an observer, an outsider, not a participant. The river flows on to the accepting ocean, and the ocean becomes the clouds that pour in to the mountain lakes that become again the rivers, but he is—well, he is an eddy, a still spot where leaves and detritus gather in some forest somewhere. He watches the river, and he thereby understands more of humans than many philosophers ever have, and yet to Ikebukuro he is nothing, like the raven flying high is nothing to the earth-bound spider weaving sticky strands of existence.

Izaya admonishes himself for this thought, smiling discouragingly at himself, shaking his finger. He shouldn't care—he is above humans. Better the crow than the flies, after all. Still, though, he watches thoughts thunder by violently, dangerously outside the train, the glass of the windows straining and cracking in slow motion. He picks out a few strands lazily, letting his fingers disintegrate in the darkness, melted by his own mind, and doesn't even hiss at the pain.

If you're above this all, _where does that leave you_? If one's existence is comprised entirely of watching and mocking and interfering in the existences of others, then what can you call your own_? _If everyone else died and you were left alone, would you be alive or a living ghost with none to define you? The thoughts burn him relentlessly. Izaya pauses and his smile widens crazily as he turns a corner and confronted with the enormity of existence.

This question bothers and fascinates him. It scratches at his skin, producing bloody streaks, and his mind is swallowing his body whole, hungry lips devouring his feet and ugly tongues licking at the backs of his eyelids, and Izaya loves it all. There's nothing he likes better than a puzzle to solve, a game to beat, a challenger to grind into the dirt—especially with a time limit included, because that makes it more exciting—and here it is, Izaya versus Izaya. The game is the answering of the question, and he will either win or lose. There is no middle. This might take a while to figure out, he admits to himself, and laughs cruelly to think that the one person to challenge him would have to be himself, as only is appropriate. After all, he is alone, and always will be. The thought tickles his mind, and he feels proud, facing the world with no one behind him, born without parents and dying without a god. 

The day wears on towards afternoon, and Izaya balances himself on the edge of absolute chaos. Discovering your true feelings is like throwing yourself down a bottomless pit—every step of self-discovery is slippery with trouble and danger, every other corner filled with landmines or poisonous snakes or other such hazards, and Izaya inhales it all, adrenaline viciously pummeling the walls of his blood vessels. No one notices him, no one wonders about him, and he is dead and alive at the same time, made so by unseeing eyes and unspeaking lips. And as Izaya wanders past the sushi shop of Simon—

"Izaya! Have some sushi, it's fresh and cheap!"

—steps around Erika and Walker's enormous colored advertisement for a new manga-ka's book signing—

"Did you hear about the Dollars?"

"Eeeeeh??? No, why? Did something exciting happen?"

" I heard that the leader showed up in…"

— trails his fingertips along Saburo's precious car and startles Mikado and Anri behind a wall on their awkward semi-dates—

"Crap! It's that Orihara Izaya person Kida-kun told me about!"

"Let's get out of here!"

— as Kadota barely stops himself from running in to him—

"Yo, Izaya… Izaya?"

— and Seiji dodges rapidly out of his line of sight—

"That was way too close!"

—he becomes tangled quickly in his own web of thought. This young man is eternally on his own, even with an army of pawns scattered at his feet, because in his arrogant knowledge of his own uniqueness Izaya has forgotten something rather important, that in his heart there still sits a child that was born old, knew it, and forgot to grow up.

The day grows late. When. Suddenly.

Like a gunshot in to the already foaming rapids of Izaya's mind, tumbling to unknown ends.

"I…. zaaa…. yaaaa….. –KUN," and the last syllable of supposed affection is smashed in with a full refrigerator's worth of irony, a horrible white cymbal crash to end the show. And Izaya is close to home, now. Just give him a few minutes. Shizuo wouldn't have time for Izaya's ridiculous, sudden journey of self-discovery, won't let it interfere with their game, if he actually noticed. And even if he did, Shizuo would probably just feel even angrier at him.

Izaya turns, after an eternity and looks the bartender straight in the eye,

Shizuo reads him in less than half a second, like a book with letters the size of the clouds in the sky, the whiteness of the page startling against the black holes of the words. For someone as brutal as this non-peaceful island of a man is, for someone as complex as Izaya is, Shizuo sometimes has astonishing insight into Izaya's mind. It comes from hours spent chasing the man through cities, days of ears filled with his taunts and months of nostrils flaring with the stink of Izaya's very existence. But it truly is too easy, this time.

Fine. If that damn flea's going to be distracted, so much the better. If Izaya wants to sink into madness, Shizuo will follow him, push deeper and deeper until he kicks Izaya to the utmost bottom. Shizuo will then grind Izaya's cheek into the floor, and will further proceed to drag Izaya back to the surface, where he will then drown him again, and again, until Izaya doesn't want to go down, until he begs for air.

To make good on his plan, a signpost is torn out of the ground by Shizuo with astonishing speed, and Izaya finds a smile cracking his lips, making them bleed. This man. Somehow, all the time, after years and years, they have never failed to meet. Izaya doesn't understand Shizuo, and so he keeps coming back to try and try and fail and fail, time after time, to defeat this one man. And another half-second later, the metal of the pole connects with a loud crunch with the side of Izaya's distracted head.

Izaya staggers and almost falls, and the pain transforms his smile in to a full-blown fevered laugh which pours itself like pestilence in to Shizuo's itching ear, and the not-so-eternal still whirlpool is defeated, the raindrops dancing in the lowering sun to join the river again, and it never felt so good. Izaya feels himself grow warmer, touched by the fingers of the sun's rays once again.

"Shizu-chan."

They pause, though the lines are well-known, have been read a thousand times and performed on the stage of the city's floor too often to count, and the silence is tense, yet comfortable.

"You damn flea. I thought I told you not to come back." And his voice is a threat, the voice of the city which is a home of sorts to a wanderer without even a real birthplace to call his own.

"But Shizu-chan missed me, didn't he?"

Another second, and Shizuo and Izaya are off, racing after and around each other in a game that never ends, a dog chasing its own tail in the forever afternoon sun that laughs and laughs and laughs. And Shizuo's answer to that question is Izaya's answer to his own. Does he exist?

They round the corner containing Yagiri, who's still seeking, seeking. They almost run over Kadota, and Kadota staggers back, eyes wide, and thinks this is really getting ridiculous—really, twice in a few hours? Mikado and Anri are running, too, and can't believe the luck they have when they hear breathless insults being hurled through the air—so now both Orihara and Heiwajima are here? Saburo screeches to a halt at a green light, swearing and breathing hard, damning those two maniacs who don't understand or care about the rules pedestrians are supposed to follow. Erika and Walker smile out loud, yell and clap and cheer for whoever's losing, though it's not clear to either party who that would be. The flyers scattered on the pavement in front of the Russian sushi shop fly up like paper dust underneath their burning heels, and Simon grunt a little in annoyance, though he supposes that it's good Izaya is here for Shizuo to vent his ever-building stress on.

And they're still going, and now the two are beyond these existences we've followed, these stories intermingled in the melting pot of Ikebukuro, and into a space uniquely their own, smashing in to cars and jumping walls and scaling chain-link fences, two blurs of identical light traveling at warped speeds in the warm embrace of the airy infinity of the universe, the wind cutting their skin in the most comfortable way, their hearts bursting in their chests and their muscles burning with hate and the sky so huge, so close, the clouds grazing their fingertips, that Izaya wants to cry with the feeling of it. Izaya's mouth is open in a lopsided smile and he's probably catching flies, but let them come, he doesn't care.

Because. This is.

This is one hundred percent _living_ emotion, distilled to the purest of golden droplets, and Izaya surrenders his aloof position willingly for this half-hour, at least. At this instance, six billion people are going about their own lives, but for once Izaya doesn't have time to love them all, to watch over them as they sleep, because he's busy with something a little more personal. Because Izaya knows now beyond all doubts that he _was _born, that he _has _survived twenty years on this Earth and that he _is _alive now, because _he is human_, and that fact shouldn't be okay, shouldn't be right or acceptable but in this instant it is because _everything_ in this moment is okay, is right and is acceptable and lovable. After all, if he pisses Shizuo off this much, then the answer to _that_ question is undoubtedly yes, and Izaya is honest enough with himself to admit that that is the answer he wanted. It is a surprise, and a beautiful one too.

And we're watching, too, and each and every of our lives connected because we see Izaya and his inevitable humanness. I don't know about you, but I want to laugh with him sometimes, he looks so ridiculously happy, and yet I'm glad for him.

That Orihara Izaya is living his life.

**Only the beginning**

**Story notes:** Well, it may be "just the beginning," but this _is _the end of Five Times Orihara Izaya Became Human. I'd like to say it was hard to write and that I struggled and sweated, but truthfully under the influence of great music and a real interest in this wonderful series, it actually was quite easy. I never thought this story would be so well-received, and I definitely plan to write more in the future, whether for this fandom or another. Thank you again for everyone who has supported me along the way, all you people who leave encouraging reviews and whatnot.

Oh, and most importantly, I offer my sincerest apologies to Izaya for beating you up, making you cry, and forcing you to be the star of this series. I know you never wanted any of this. ;]

Especial thanks for extra encouragements to this newbie writer: ChocolateLizz, Chi, Ash Engel, iRishou, ArdiChok3, Catastrophic Monsoon, Giraffe Attack, terracannon876, xXDeath-N'-HellXx, mysisterthinksimavampireII, maa6chaaaaaan, The Nameless Girl, Gekkou Kitsu, ChocoBits Daioh, .But Friends Make Secrets, Nekotsubasa, xmichikox, Zairal, imaginedreams22, TheContheDistance, Uphill Both Ways, KarixTakayuya, and Meepy! All of your kind words are a great support to me!

**For the last time, thank you to all readers, and "see" you later!**

**~Three Small Crows~**


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